(ThyBlackMan.com) Last week I wrote about The New Fab Five as a solution to bring revenue and prestige back to HBCUs’. In it I wrote how the lack of top athletes attending and giving back to these schools have crippled these schools from becoming the equivalent of their white counterparts. While writing I began to realize that this was just a microcosm of what OUR people are dealing with as a whole as there are many rich and prestigious blacks (lower case b for them or b-lacks) who have gotten rich off of OUR peoples dime and famous from OUR peoples shine, without giving back anything other than criticism and disrespect.
For example, last week Charles Barkley went on a radio show in Philadelphia,with a white host and said ” I tell my white friends blacks will never be successful not because of white people but because of other blacks” he went on to say ” unsuccessful blacks hate to see other blacks successful or educated or intelligent”. (Right now I gotta breathe y’all, Cuz I’m pissed!!!!)
OK, back to business! At first I was at a lost for words, not because of who said it because this was the same man who said he did not like Black Women back in the 90s ,although he was raised by two of them, and “Trayvon beat the hell out of Mr.Zimmerman”. But I was shocked at how easy it was for him to Coon and throw his people under the bus. Now here is a man, I use that term loosely, who can barely speak. As a matter of fact they make skits ridiculing charles’ grammar or lack thereof on TNT and he got rich off of the very community he claims hates success. Without mentioning the staggering disproportionate numbers that those same people are arrested and charged with crimes ,although it is proven that whites by percentage and by whole numbers commit far more crimes but are prosecuted for less.
He also failed to mention that Barack Obama is black intelligent well spoken and 96 percent of the African American community voted him into office twice despite him also being a black man who has never done or given anything back to OUR community other than criticism and disrespect. Men like Charles Barkley and Don Lemon( a gay black man who followed up Charles Barkley in agreement on a TV show the next day
without ever admitting that he has never, ever interacted with OUR community) have been given huge platforms and spotlights and have used them to repeatedly undermine The Black community. I want you to consider that Charles Barkley is 50 years old and got into the NBA at age 20. He spent two to three years at Auburn University, a predominately white and at one time segregated University ,and has been rich since then. So when and where has he ever come across or interacted with poor blacks?!?! Only in a chance meeting!?!? Because if in fact what he said was true, we would not know who Charles Barkley is. And if not for a million black kids in the neighborhoods all across America wearing Charles Barkleys tennis shoes he wouldn’t be rich and famous now.
All of these factors disturb me, but what I find most disturbing is the amount of black people who will defend Charles Barkley as if he is not talking about them.
As if he was not insulting them and undermining them, people to foolish to see this man has no connection to Black people, he is going out of his way in every aspect to disassociate with black people. Meanwhile people will make the insane argument that I should be calling lost children the problem. Children who were impacted by the arrows of white supremacy and didn’t have the support group to tell them what was going on until it was too late! Until they took another black mans life or until they became a victim of the white man’s prison system. As a person who has lost many to black on black violence, even my little brother ,there’s no way I would condone the murder of another black man but it would be both incorrect and a downright travesty to neglect all of the systems put in place to create this sort of environment. If Charles Barkley wanted to make that argument he could have said, “due to the Willie Lynch syndrome that was and continues to be perpetuated against the black community we still have some amongst us who feel achievement is selling out.”
It would have been wrong but at least it sounded better and he didn’t throw OUR whole community under the bus. But when you notice that Charles is in a bunch of commercials now with a bunch of white people and he hasn’t dunked a ball in about 20 years, it makes you wonder if he’s doing anything he can to stay relevant,even if it means upholding white supremacy. Then I find insulting that he would imply members of our community who are on the other side of the law seek out athletes to bring them down, when many cases its the other way around. Even Kenny Smith said how “dudes in the hood” knew he was playing ball and looked out for him as far as giving him shoes and giving him passes and making the neighborhood safe so he could achieve his goal. If you actually sat down and talked with a lot of players truthfully you would find there are a lot of people in the background who helped keep them out of trouble, even if they were constantly in trouble.
What normally happens is the star athlete, actor, or politician and of leaving the community that helped him gain his prominence , he inevitably sells out his community at the whim of the dominant class only to serve as a token symbol of what you can achieve if you throw your people under the bus and neglect where you come from.
This game of life is a tough game to play folks and if you haven’t figured it out its a Team sport and our team sucks because men like Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan will sell you tennis shoes at an exorbitant fee, for another team, and then when asked “Can you lower the price to make them more affordable to the same class of people you come from?” or “Mass produce enough shoes where brothers and sisters aren’t killing each other because of the rarity.” They respond with statements like “you shouldn’t buy them if you cant afford them” and “Republicans buy tennis shoes too.” Then when these individuals are faced with criticism from the community that made them who they are ,members of the insulted community come out in support of the person who insulted them. Instead of being focused on the obvious attempts of certain groups within our team who are attempting to help push a white supremacist stereotype and agenda. In response and action to Charles Barkleys’ statements I called TNT and made a complaint requesting that Charles Barkley be suspended for yet again insulting our community.
I realize that if Charles had said that about a Jewish man a million Jews would have called, if he said something derogatory about gays a million gays would have called ,if he spoke about almost any other ethnic group except Ours he would have been suspended and reprimanded but because we are a separated locker room it was more trolls calling me a snitch then it was teammates saying…. yeah let’s win this game. Which of course I have to laugh because me a snitch!?!? I’m quite sure most of you who know me well reading this are on the floor right now. But this is exactly what I mean when I say OUR TEAM SUCKS…. Look who we put in the game we made Oprah a billionaire and Michael Jordan a billionaire in the city of Chicago, and how many businesses supermarket drug stores are in the black community? Why is it easier for the kids in Chicago to get guns and drugs then it is education and a ok job? Why is it ok for the president to give gays rights, businesses tax breaks, the police a pass for killing black people but give US a stern lecture about raising our kids and he was never raised in a black home or community?
But all you do is just keep clapping, just keep buying shoes, just keep buying CDs and watching TV shows and movies supporting people who look like you but have done everything to disassociate with you and put you down. They will say in one breath that a young man ,whose mother is strung out on drugs or works so much that she is never there to really give him guidance, is a bad person because he sold drugs to either help support his household or is misguided because of lack of direction. But won’t say anything about the liquor stores, gas stations and supermarkets that sell cigarettes or the local pharmacies selling synthetic versions of what the brothers on the street are selling. That will make the argument that the drugs they are selling are killing the community meanwhile,major corporations put labels on their drugs telling you that this will kill you and probably won’t help you and push them throughout our community without a word being said, but these are same people who want to condemn a 16 year old for trying to find a way out of poverty. Effectively alienating are young warriors and youth from our elderly and aging starting lineup.
In a way lil Boosie and Charles Barkley are right and I think they know it is because of people like them. Boosie said we always cut each others throat what he forgot to say was by rapping about shooting and killing black men and dealing dope and then condemning black man for doing what you glorified. Charles Barkley said we hate successful black intelligent men, in a way he’s right because he’s done a lot undermine the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Brother Minister Malcolm X two educated well-spoken intelligent successful black man killed by who…… Don’t worry I’ll wait.
The fact of the matter is our team sucks because we have too many people in the starting lineup playing for rival teams. Who do you see from rival teams running to play for US? Justin Bieber plays for his team but uses US. Charles Barkley plays for the white supremacist team but uses US to get ahead. We need to inject some new blood into the game we need to start releasing and making cuts and adjusting our roster and injecting new fresh faces and minds to better counter this current siege that we have been under from seemingly everywhere. And we need to build new modern coalitions to deal with new modern problems. And we need to stop letting athletes who are not Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, or Kareem Abdul Jabbar approved speak to, for, or about Our community without being taken to task, especially if they’ve never done anything to serve our community outside of dunk a basketball or catch a touchdown.
We should not support nor should we buy any products that these so called black athletes and entertainers support if they are not willing to go back to their communities and rebuild and give young brothers who are just like them a chance to succeed. Our team sucks because we have poor recruiting and poor coaching staff, Our team sucks because we have blind supporters of the wrong players, Our team sucks because we aren’t putting people who need to play in the damn game.!!!!! Our team sucks because we refuse to learn Our history, Our team sucks because we refuse to teach our history, Our team sucks because we refuse to speak about the history the good and the bad that has put us in the position to have people we made stars…. Tell us we will never be winners because we made them winners.
Well it’s halftime folks and the coach just gave you your pep talk, and now it’s time for you to insert yourself into the game and I know we’re down big, but it’s a lot of game left we could take it one day at a time and make a comeback like no one has ever seen from now on let’s start making these people be held accountable for the statements they make. So I say if you want to get Charles Barkley out of the game call TNT at (404)827-1700 and express your displeasure and your wishes to see that bald-head, fat ,geechy of the air. If we’re going to win the game we got to play the game so let’s beat them at their own game….. Aight Team lets go!!!!!!
Staff Writer; LeVar Smith
